Process for determining electoral boundaries in Scotland: consultation

Methodology for reviewing boundaries

Boundaries Scotland is the independent, non-political body which reviews Scottish Parliament and local authority electoral boundaries across Scotland. The Commissioners who are members of Boundaries Scotland are appointed by Scottish Ministers and must not have any political affiliation. The Commission is responsible for reviewing the boundaries for Scottish Parliament constituencies and regions and local government electoral wards and councillor numbers. Fair electoral boundaries are the basis on which fair elections are run to elect MSPs and local councillors. So who has a say over how any proposed changes to these boundaries are approved and implemented is important.

When reviewing and recommending changes to electoral boundaries, Boundaries Scotland is required to follow a number of rules and guidelines. This helps ensure that the factors being taken into account in different areas are consistent.

One of the considerations when drawing electoral boundaries is to ensure each constituency or ward within an area contains the same number of people on the electoral register – this is often referred to as parity. In some countries, the census is used to base parity on population, rather than the number of electors. Boundaries Scotland must abide by parity as much as possible, but reviews for Scottish Parliament or local council boundaries do not have a rule for a strict percentage of leeway, as seen in some other countries. For example, UK Parliamentary constituencies can be no more than 5% higher or lower than strict parity, and Welsh Senedd constituencies can be no more than 10% higher or lower than strict parity.

When setting Scottish Parliament constituencies, Boundaries Scotland also has to take into account local authority boundaries, special geographic considerations and local ties and inconveniences caused by altering existing boundaries. For local authority ward boundaries, effective and convenient local government is the fundamental principle. Other factors to be considered are, special geographical considerations, future electoral change, local ties and whether boundaries will be easily identifiable. These may include electoral wards (when reviewing Scottish Parliament constituencies), traditional village boundaries, or natural boundaries such as lochs or mountain ridges. When local government ward boundaries and councillor numbers are reviewed, Boundaries Scotland are permitted to allocate wards with only 1 councillor when the ward is wholly or mainly comprised of inhabited islands. Non-island wards can have between 2 and 5 councillors.

Since the rules governing the creation of electoral boundaries are broadly in line with international practice, the Review is not focused on this aspect of setting electoral boundaries and change would only be recommended where it arises as a consequence of a recommendation to change the approval process.

Under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, Boundaries Scotland also has responsibility for reviewing the boundaries of council areas but has been under direction from Scottish Ministers not to conduct these reviews (except for in some limited circumstances) for many years. The focus of this review is on the approval process for electoral boundaries, so this consultation will not be considering Boundaries Scotland’s duty to review local government administrative areas in detail.